In accordance with the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) and the World Area Forecast System (WAFS) of the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), high level
significant weather (SIGWX) forecasts are provided by the AWC for the
en-route portion of international flights. The AWC provides a suite of
SIGWX forecast products for the World Area Forecast Center (WAFC) in
Washington, D.C. These products are used directly by airline
dispatchers for flight planning and weather briefing before departure,
and by flight crew members during flight. These products are generated
in sectors defined by the ICAO. As part of the preparation of these
forecasts the AWC forecasters utilized satellite image mosaics. The
infrared satellite mosaics used by the AWC forecasters have been made
into web displayable images. The projection and extent of the
satellite images corresponds directly to the projections of the AWC
high level SIGWX forecasts. The intent of these satellite images is to
allow the users of the AWC international products to better utilize
the forecast information through a shared situational awareness of the
current conditions in different parts of the world. The satellite data
contained in these images has the same values and time as other
operational satellite web sites, such as NESDIS, but these images have
been remapped and combined into a mosaic to make their information
content easier to relate to aviation forecast products.

Comments and suggestions on these products will be
gathered by e-mail to the AWC webmaster at ncep.awc.avwx@noaa.gov.

Part II - Technical
Description

These satellite images are infrared product from the
11 micron channel of the geostationary and polar satellites from the
GOES-east, GOES-west, GMS, Meteosat satellites, NOAA-15, NOAA-16, and
NOAA-17. The NOAA satellites fill in information in the polar regions
and the geostationary satellites are used elsewhere. Where there is an
overlap between satellite coverage, the most timely satellite data is
utilized for that region. The infrared channel shows the temperature
of the cloud. The higher clouds are colder and show up as white in the
black and white images or green and blue in the colored images. Where
there are no clouds the satellite shows the ground temperature with
black being warmer or red in the colored images. The satellite sectors
are in JPEG file format which can be viewed by most web browsers. The
global mosaics are generated every 30 minutes. The sectors containing
data from the Meteosat satellites are restricted to 6 hourly coverage
by agreement with the original producers of those satellite data.
Further information on weather satellites and available images can be
obtained from NESDIS at http://www.goes.noaa.gov/